The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), or El Niño, weather pattern occurs naturally every two to seven years, making some parts of the world drier and others wetter. But this year’s El Niño is shaping up to be a different beast.Scientists predict an increasingly likely ‘Super El Niño,’ where ocean temperatures in the Pacific rise higher than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) above average and alter atmospheric conditions more than usual. The result could be stronger, more persistent impacts around the world in the form of droughts, floods, cyclones, extreme heat and more.While Super El Niños occur roughly every 10-15 years, the effects of this year’s event could be amplified by current conditions. For one, warmer, drier and more erratic conditions fueled by ongoing climate change could exacerbate El Niño’s impacts. The last 11 years have been the warmest on record. And two, food systems around the world already face strains from the U.S.-Iran war and its resulting fuel and fertilizer shortages.Here, WRI experts answer questions on what a Super El Niño could mean for water, food and forests — as well as how communities can prepare for the impacts.Water Woes May IntensifyFeatured Expert: Liz Saccocia,Water Security AssociateHow might a Super El Niño affect the water supply?El Niño causes shifting atmospheric patterns that can cause floods in some regions and droughts in others. While impacts can be tricky to predict, areas expected to experience drought this year include the Caribbean, Central America, northern Brazil, central and northern India, central and southern Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia. These conditions could reduce water availability, strain agriculture, and increase pressure on reservoirs and groundwater.At the same time, El Niño can also bring above-average rainfall and flooding to other parts of the world. According to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), areas that may experience wetter conditions this year include the southern United States, parts of Peru, Ecuador, eastern Africa and parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Increased rainfall may temporarily replenish reservoirs and improve water supplies in some places, but it can also overwhelm infrastructure and increase flood risks.A Super El Niño could intensify extreme weather impacts, leading to more severe storms, flooding and drought than a typical El Niño event. Regions already vulnerable to water stress may experience sharper declines in water availability. Flood-prone areas could see more damaging rain. How can communities best prepare for El Niño-related water shocks?Because forecasts can provide advance warning, governments and organizations have opportunities to prepare for droughts and floods.During the 2023–2024 El Niño, for example, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) supported anticipatory actions such as repairing and constructing irrigation systems, strengthening flood protections, and providing cash transfers so families could evacuate before floods occurred. Additional interventions included distributing drought-resilient and short-cycle crop seeds to help farmers adapt to changing conditions.These kinds of early actions can help communities protect water supplies, reduce economic losses and improve resilience to future climate shocks.Featured Expert:Mike Badzmierowski,Manager for U.S. Agricultural PolicyClimate Change and War Could Heighten El Niño’s Impacts on Food SystemsHow do El Niños affect food production?We know El Niño affects food production because it can alter global atmospheric circulation, influencing temperatures, precipitation, drought, flooding and storms around the world. Our understanding of food production linked to El Niño and other major climate patterns is still in its infancy. We know ENSO matters, but there’s a lot of uncertainty, and impacts tend to vary considerably around the globe.What we can say is that El Niño has historically shifted food-production risk across regions. Some places benefit, some are harmed, and the global average effect can hide severe local impacts.El Niño-induced droughts can cause food losses in some places — most concerningly, in areas that are rainfed, low-income, import-dependent and already food-insecure. For example, some regions in Southern Africa have generally experienced reduced cereal production during El Niño events due to drier and hotter growing seasons, leading to increased import needs. But the size of the impact depends on local rainfall, heat, crop calendars, starting soil moisture, government response, markets and whether other climate patterns such as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) reinforce or offset the El Niño.How could the Super El Niño be different?If a strong to very strong El Niño does occur, it may differ from past events in one very important way: It would be happening in a hotter world. The last 11 years have been the warmest on record. That matters because a warmer baseline can make the same climate shock more damaging. Higher temperatures can make the atmosphere thirstier, pulling more moisture from soils and plants. This can dry out soils and crops faster, worsen heat stress for crops and livestock, and make droughts more damaging even when rainfall deficits are similar to past El Niños.This overall warming trend also complicates areas that might receive more rain. More precipitation does not always mean more usable or stored water. A recent paper in Nature shows that more concentrated precipitation can actually reduce terrestrial water storage. If rain falls in more intense bursts, more of it may pool on the surface and then evaporate before it replenishes soil and groundwater. So farms in places that receive more intense rain during an El Niño event may not necessarily be any more resilient than drier places.Given the current shortages of fuel and fertilizer due to the U.S.-Iran conflict, how might the Super El Niño impact food systems? The Iran-U.S. conflict-related fuel and fertilizer disruptions matter because they reduce resilience. A strong to very strong El Niño would raise the risk of drought, heat, flooding, pasture stress, fisheries disruption and regional crop losses in certain parts of the world. Those risks become more serious when farmers have fewer tools to respond.Fertilizer has become less available and less affordable as the war on Iran has continued to disrupt energy markets, shipping and fertilizer trade. Fuel is critical across the food system, from nitrogen fertilizer production to farm equipment to refrigeration, shipping and transport of agricultural products. If fuel and fertilizer prices remain high, farmers may plant less, apply less fertilizer, or struggle to move food where it’s needed, exacerbating food insecurity. A potentially historic El Niño would layer drought, heat or flooding risks onto an already fragile system, increasing the likelihood that high costs turn into real food shortages.Even after El Niño fades, its effects could linger through the food system. Reduced fertilizer use, poor harvests, livestock losses, higher debt and depleted household savings can affect the next planting season. So, if the U.S.-Iran conflict continues to disrupt fuel and fertilizer markets, it could worsen the effects of a likely El Niño by adding food price and input-cost pressures in the places least able to absorb them.How can you make food systems more resilient to El Niño and other shocks?Now more than ever, global cooperation is needed to provide food and aid when local and regional shocks occur — be they related to weather, geopolitics or both. There is also a longer-term need to reduce the drivers of climate change that increase risks to the food system in the first place. In agriculture, that means reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food production and deforestation, even while providing more food for a growing population. On the consumption side of the equation, it is essential to reduce food waste and meat consumption (especially beef) in places where it is high and shift toward more plant-centered diets. We also need to use more of our finite cropland, water and fertilizer for food. A significant and growing amount of global agricultural land, water and fertilizer is devoted to producing food crops for fuel, such as corn for ethanol and soybeans for biodiesel. This becomes harder to justify in a world where climate shocks increasingly threaten food security.A Super El Niño Could Trigger More Damaging Forest FiresFeatured Experts: James MacCarthy,GIS Research AssociatePeter Potapov, ResearcherWhat is the relationship between El Niños, forests and climate change?Ongoing human-caused climate change is the most important driver of increased forest fires globally over the last decade. El Niño amplifies the effects of climate change by shifting rainfall patterns and raising global temperatures, bringing hotter, drier conditions and increased fire risk to some regions while exposing others to above average rainfall and flooding.Of these impacts, fire poses the greatest threat to forests and the carbon they store. In areas where El Niño brings drier, warmer conditions, it lowers ignition thresholds and accelerates the spread of accidental, intentional and naturally ignited forest fires. The resulting fires can cause damage that takes decades to recover from and release enormous amounts of carbon that accelerate climate change, triggering a dangerous cycle that makes forests even more vulnerable to fire. Beyond fires, climate warming amplified by El Niño-related drought degrades forest health and makes trees more vulnerable to insects and pathogens.El Niño’s relationship with forest fires varies considerably by region. The clearest, most consistent pattern is in South America, where El Niño tends to reduce rainfall during the wet season, leaving the subsequent dry season even more arid and fire-prone. This is particularly true in the Amazon, where forests are not well-adapted to fire. The two most recent strong El Niño events, in 2015-2016 and 2023-2024, both produced record-breaking fire seasons in Brazil. In both 2016 and 2024, fires burned more than 2.3 million hectares of forest in Brazil — more than 4 times the annual average from 2001 to 2025, according to data on WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform. El Niño also tends to bring drier, hotter conditions to Southeast Asia and Australia, elevating fire risk. Impacts in these regions are more variable and influenced by other cyclical climate phenomena like the Indian Ocean Dipole, which can either amplify or dampen the influence of El Niño on forest fires. A strong 2023-2024 El Niño also contributed to Canada’s warmest winters on record, thinned snowpack, and dry weather in the fall, leading to the country’s record wildfire season of 2023.When it comes to forest fires, what might we expect this year with the potential Super El Niño? Even before a potential Super El Niño fully develops, we are likely to see elevated fire activity in 2026. The year is on track to be one of the warmest on record. Hotter, drier conditions will increase fire risk even in the absence of a fully established El Niño.Forest fire activity in South America is likely to be elevated in 2026 as El Niño develops, but the most severe impacts typically lag by about a year. Potentially record-breaking forest fire activity in the Amazon is most likely in the second half of 2027, when reduced wet season rainfall leaves the following dry season even more arid and fire-prone.Elevated fire risk is also likely in Southeast Asia, Australia and Canada later this year and into 2027. El Niño tends to bring hotter, drier summers and reduced winter snowpack to Canada, as seen during the record 2023 fire season. In Southeast Asia and Australia, impacts will depend in part on how other climate phenomena like the Indian Ocean Dipole interact with El Niño.Although global climate change and El Niño-related drought facilitate the spread of fires in forests, logging, mining roads and expanding agriculture are often what cause fires to ignite in the first place.How can we counteract El Niño’s potential impacts on forest fires?Cutting carbon emissions and reducing deforestation remain the most important long-term solutions to reduce climate change and wildfire danger. Limiting roads, logging and land clearing in intact natural forests may help to reduce fire ignition and prevent wildfires.Closer collaboration between local governments and Indigenous communities is also critical, with research showing that Indigenous-led land stewardship and community-based fire management can help reduce fuel loads and lower wildfire risk. Finally, national programs for fire management, fire prevention and public education are critical to prevent catastrophic forest fires, but remain underfunded and underdeveloped across much of the world. Early warning systems and satellite-based fire detection technology, such as the fire alerts on Global Forest Watch, can also help enable faster responses in under-resourced regions.